New technologies in neuroscience

What if, by spending a couple of hours a week in front of a computer, the neural pathways and synapses of the brain were strengthened so that students could advance subjects and knowledge both cognitively and academically? If we explained to you that the training that the child can do alone would be equivalent to reducing the academic courses from ten months to five? What would you think if we explained to you that these neural pathways modify our brains in the essentials, allowing us to reset with greater capacity?

It may seem to you that we are speaking from the time warp, but in reality, we are only speaking from New York (six hours of time difference). Here, many schools have taken up the academic challenge posed by the implementation of technologies in academic life.

An expert consultant tells us that the National Institute of Health of the US Government has developed a brain training program, called C8 Sciences , that improves executive function in children between 5 and 9 years of age, stating that it is the most sophisticated brain training we've ever seen. What is not as well known is that this program is also a powerful tool for evaluating and providing schools on the cognitive strengths and weaknesses of each child , and that it can help principals and teachers to take advantage of the strengths and work with the weaknesses.

In addition, in order to continually improve the C8 brain training programs , each time the child clicks, the training exercises are saved. This information is used to evaluate and improve design features and provides interesting information to schools. The algorithms created by scientists analyze the patterns of correct answers and wrong in training programs to create a profile of each child in areas (cognitive strengths and weaknesses that complement the information). These profiles are similar to neuropsychological evaluations, but infinitely cheaper, faster and we can also observe the evolution process.

Founder and scientist Dr. Bruce Wexler (Brain and Culture: neurobiology, ideology, and social change, 2006) sees many applications. The most prominent is the emotional bias or prejudices that teachers have towards the student. Wexler did an experiment with teachers. He collected the best grades from a school and asked teachers if they could identify the children with the best grades. 80% of the teachers were wrong in the evaluation of the subject, which shows that the child, when he performs this training system and is objectively evaluated, obtains better qualifications.

Another interesting case was that of a child who they wanted to send to special education because he was unable to learn the English language at a normal pace. When the child was assessed at C8, his hidden strengths profile towards languages was revealed as very high. The assessment and data provided by the C8 system is an interesting point in identifying children with broad spectrum neurodiverse brain profiles. Merging data with normal assessments, identifying children who might be gifted in one area, and giving teachers, principals, and parents a glimpse into neurodiverse classes. The integration of technology in the classroom is part of the learning strategies of neuroscience and is ideal for those teachers familiar with project-based learning.

How to integrate technology in the classroom?

Jan Hawkins , a pioneer and advocate of educational technology, wrote an essay in 1997 called "Learning and Living," which outlined a number of exciting possibilities about what educational technology offered to children, teachers, and schools. Although he died in 1999, his ideas are essential to address the pedagogical vision of technology . Hawkins was the director of the New York Center for Children and Technology for seven years , a non-profit association that was charged with researching the development and appropriate use of technologies in schools, homes and communities.

The communications technologies and multimedia resources can be tools to improve education, but not just tools. Just as a space shuttle or a microscope are not just machines and processes, they are also the purposes for which they were created. Their power is only activated depending on the sustained attention and treatment that we give them in our school, the practices that are done at home, in the way in which they participate in the community or how time and technology are distributed.

When a teacher asks: should a student have a tablet or how many computers should a school have? We focus on a much more productive issue. Will the tablet or computer help the child in his learning to reach the quotas that will be required of him in the world outside of school? The rest is a wonderful story about a time that we no longer live.